Prayer before Birth

Prayer before Birth

I am not yet born; O hear me.

Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the

     club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.

I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,

     with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,

        on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me

With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk

     to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light

        in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me

For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words

     when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,

        my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,

           my life when they murder by means of my

              hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me

In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when

     old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains

        frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white

            waves call me to folly and the desert calls

              me to doom and the beggar refuses

                 my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,

Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God

     come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me

With strength against those who would freeze my

     humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,

        would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with

           one face, a thing, and against all those

              who would dissipate my entirety, would

                 blow me like thistledown hither and

                    thither or hither and thither

                       like water held in the

                          hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.

Otherwise kill me.

By Louis MacNeice

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads
Full beautiful, a faery's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A faery's song.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
I love thee true.

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she gaz'd and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes--
So kiss'd to sleep.

And there we slumber'd on the moss,
And there I dream'd, ah woe betide,
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
Who cry'd--"La belle Dame sans merci
Hath thee in thrall!"

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill side.

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.

 [Rafiqqa]